Book I. 



AGRICULTURE OF HEREFORDSHIRE. 



tlOI 



8. Gardens and Orcharda. 



The latter very genera! on a small scale; apples for eating 

 much in demand at the iron mills; best orchards and hou- 

 groamls in the hundred of liacland. 



9. yVoods and Plantations. 



County long famous for the size of its oaks ; stock now much 

 dnninished. 



10. Livestock. 



Minted cattle; some dairyinc, but feeding more general; 

 Hereford horses a good deal bred ; asses and mules in use about 

 the iron works: the mules found better than horses for carrying 

 charcoal from the woods to the iron works. 



11. Political Economy. 



Valentine Morris, Esq. of Vlerccfleld, being examined u to 

 the roads of the county, before Parliament, wa-s aski-d, 



\L- What soit of toads have you in Monraouthsliire ? 



A. None. 



Q. How do you travel then ? 



A. In ditches. 



This was thirty years Jigo ; they are now improved, but still 

 bad ; various iron railways and canals. 



12. Means of Improvement. 



leases; embanking the river meadows; drainage; know- 

 ledge. 



/009. HEREl. ORDSHIIIE, A surface of 600,000 acres, studded with hills, hillocks, and minor swells 

 l\u-^y heights and dimensions ; almost every where of a rich soil, devoted exclusively to agriculture. 



and highly productive in corn cattle, fruit, cider, hops, and timber. The most distinguished cultivator 

 n the county is 1. A. Knight, Esq., known m agnculture by his Treatise on the Apple and Pear. 



many valuable papers in the 1 ransactions of tne Royal Society, and communications to the Board of Agri. 



nf fhriA"f"',P",''c'"? ^J' "H^,*^""""^ ^S^^'^ and improvements, and his honorable office of President 



view mS) i>ociety. {Clark's Herefordshire, 179*. Dunc(mib's Report, 1808. MarshaVs Re. 



The grass is mown as soon as it is in blossom, and consequently 

 previous to the formation of seed. The after-grass is not 

 grazed until it begins to contract a yellow au]>earance, in! the 

 latter end of Octol)er or beginning of November. In this case 

 the ground remains covered during the winter with a portion 

 of dead herbage, through which the young gra.ss springs with 

 the greatest vigor at an early period of the succeeding 

 spring. "^ 



8. Gardens and Orchards. 



Fniit trees first extensively planted in Herefordshire in the 

 time of Charles I., by Lord "Scudamore, of Home Lacy. Or- 

 chards and hedge-row trees of the apple and jiear kind are 

 found on every aspect, soil, and under every culture. The soil 

 best adapted to most kmds of apples, is a deep rich loam when 

 under the culture of the plough ; the Styre and golden-pippin, 

 in particular, form exceptions, and flourish most in a hot and 

 shallow soil, on a Ume or sandstone. The best sorts of pear 

 trees also prefer the rich loam, but inferior kinds will even 

 flourish where the soil will scarcely produce herbage. The 

 apples are divided into old and new sorts ; each class com- 

 prises some called kernel fruits, namely, the fruit growing on 

 Its native roots, as a distinction from those produced by the 

 operation of grafting. The old sorts of apples are those which 



1. Geographical State and Circumstances. 



Climate, remarkably healthy; west winds the coldest; warm- 

 est and earliest part about R<^. 



Suil. A marly clay of great fertility extends over most of the 

 county. The heaviest crops of wheat produced on a clayey 

 tract between Hereford and Ledbury; the lightest lands in 

 the south-east about Wormelow, and known as the " Rye 

 lands," from the prevailing produce there in former times. 



MnieiaU. Iron ore in the sandy district, but none manufac- 

 tured at present. Red and yellow ochres, pipe-clay, and fullers 

 earth, but only the latter worked for. 



Wuter abounds ; salmon caught in the Wye, but owing to the 

 weirs and illegal practices, not so abundantly as formerly. 



2. Property. 

 Guy's Hospital, Duke of Norfolk, Earl of Oxford, Earl of 



Essex, Sir G. Cornwall, &c. the largest proprietors. Their es- 

 tates divided into farms of from '200 to 400 acres. A number 

 of estates from 400/. to lOOtW. per annum constantly resided 

 on by their owners, and cultivated and managed in good style, 

 with a view to the introduction of the best agricultural prac- 

 tices. The tenures of gavelkind and liorough-english exist 

 in a few places, but are generally nullified by will. 



3. Buildings. 

 Some fine seats of ))roprietors, as Home-lacy, Hampton 



Court, Downton CasUe, &c. Old farm-houses of wood, till de- 

 signed, and placixl : some good new ones on the Guy's Hospital 

 and other estates. Cottages very humble, and of an inferior 

 construction. Strawberries lately cultivated by some cotta- 

 gers,'for the Hereford market, with success and profit. 



4. Occupation. 



Small farms on the decline; few opiiortunities now bv 

 which an industrious couple can devote 50?. or 100/., acquired 

 by personal labor, to stock a few acres, and bring up their 

 family, and pass their latter years in comparative indepen- 

 dence. Hence matrimony on the decline, and licentiousness 

 on the increase. Hence Duncombe humanely recommends 

 proprietors to forego the temporary advantages of throwing the 

 whole of their estates into large farpis, and advises some of all 

 .sizes, from 5 to 500 acres, as ultimately best for the country. 

 " The old-fashioned farmer of Herefordshire receives any new 

 experiment in agriculture with great h'-'sitation, if not reluc- 

 tance. When its utility is confirmed by repeated trials, he 

 slowly" and gradually falls into the practice; but he wisely 

 leaves the experiment and the risk to those who recommend 

 or suggest it ; and happily the county is at this moment well 

 provided with agriculturists, who possess the means and the 

 spirit to undertake the patriotic task." Leases of .'twenty-one 

 years most commonly in three periods of seven years, deter- 

 minable at the end of each period by either landlord or 

 tenant. 



6. Implements. 



Plough called the light lammas, without a wheel, and 

 drawn by three or four oxen generally in a line, abreast, but 

 often the yoke is the usual mode of harnessing. Various im- 

 proved implements by the amateurs, but none in general use. 



6. Arable Land. 



VVheat principal grain cultivated, and generally sown on a 

 fallow. Cnange of seed procuretl from the chalk hills of Ox- 

 fordshire ; steejjed in brine and lime, to guard against vermin 

 and smut. Knight, late of Elton, now of Downton Castle, steeps 

 in water and then envelojies in lime, and his wheat was as free 

 from smut and other diseases as that of his neighbors from 

 changed seed. Hops a good deal cultivated, and chietly dis- 

 posed of to Bristol dealers. 



7. Grass. 



Fertile meadows on the \Vye, Frome, and Lug ; mown 

 and fed. Not a dairy county for home consumption, seldom 

 for exterior markets, or Smithlield. Butter supplied from 

 Wales, and cheese from Shropshire and Gloucestershire. 

 " The general soil of Herefordshire appears to be unfavorable 

 to the making of cheese. T. A. Knight, witl> that accuracy 

 and skill which he is known to possess on all subjects connected 

 with agriculture and natural history, has proved by experi- 

 ment, that equal quantities of milk in Herefordshire and Che- 

 shire, will produce unetpial quantities of curd, highly to the 

 advantage of Cheshire : and further, that better cheese has 

 been produced in that county, from milk, half of which has 

 been previously skimmed, than is produced in this from milk 

 ;ether unskimmed. The want, therefore, of complete 



altogetht 



cess in this valuable branch of rural economy is not solely 

 be attributed to the want of skill in our dairy -maids ; and the 

 cause of failure is rendered more difficult of discovery, and 

 consequently more difficult to be remedied, from an observ- 

 ation that the plants were nearly the same in the Herefordshire 

 and Cheshire pastures, on whic'h the above experiments were 

 made: while clover abounded in each, with the crested dog- 

 tail grassland rye-grass mixed with others in small quan- 

 tities. Of such plants the pastures of Herefordshire are gene- 

 rally comjxjsed. 



A mode tif mana^inf; sound meadorvt and patlurc* has lately 

 been tried, and attended with a great increase of produce 



have been long introduced, such as the Styre, golden pippin, 

 hagloe-crab ; Iseveral varieties of the Harvey ; the brandy 

 apple, red-streak, woodcock, movie, gennet, red, white, ani 

 yellow musks; fox whelp, loan, 'and old pearmains; dymock 

 red, ten commandments, and others. Some of these names 

 are descriptive of the firuit, and others are derived from the 

 places where they have been first found, or found in most 

 abundance. The old pears held in most estimation are, the 

 squash, so called from the tenderness of its pulp ; the oldfield, 

 from having grown as a seedling in .a fiela of that name ; the 

 huffcap, from the quantity of fixed air contained in its liquor ; 

 the bar-land, from fields in the parish of Rosbury, called the 

 Barlands ; the sack-pear, from its richness ; and the red pear, 

 from its color. Of more common sorts, the long-land is the 

 most valuable, and for the general use of the farmer perhaps 

 the best of any. 



9. Woods and Plantations. 



Oak very abundant, and more rapid in its growth in this 

 county and Monmouthshire than in most parts of England. 

 Lord Oxford's estates and Croft Castle contain the finest old 

 trees in the county ; fine woods at Foxley , U. Price, Esq. ; most 

 luxuriant oak timber and coppices at Moccas Court and Stoke 

 Park ; a curious weeping oak at Moccas. Most productive ash 

 coppices at Hampton Court and Ledbury ; cut every thirteen 

 years for crate ware, hurdles, &c. and bring from IHl. to .35/. 

 per wood acre, which is to the statute acre as 8 to 5. Elm trees 

 are interspersed in the hedge-rows with fruit trees. 



10. Improvements. 



Draining much wanted, but practised chiefly by propri- 

 etors ; watering little practised, though Introduced in 1610 by 

 R. Vaughan, Esq. of New Court, whose tract on the subject 

 has-been already mentioned. (4054.) One of theip-eatest expe- 

 riments in this way which has been attempted of late years in 

 Herefordshire, has been attended with complete success on the 

 estate of T. A. Knight. By making a wear on the river Teme, 

 with proper courses for the water, that gentleman is now 

 enabled to irrigate two hundred acres of land, which were 

 never watered before, with the assistance of the least flood; 

 and one half of that quantity even in tlie driest season. 



11. Livestock. 



Hereford cattle esteemed superior to most, if not to all, 

 other breeds ; those of Devon and Sussex nearest them in ap- 

 pearance. Large size, an athletic form, and unusual neatness, 

 characterize the true sort ; the prevailing color is a reddish 

 brown, with white faces. "I'he rearing of oxen for agricultural 

 purposes universally )irevails ; nearly half the ploughing is 

 performed by them, and they take an equal share in the labors 

 of the harvest. They are sh'oed with iron in situations which 

 fretjuently require their exertions on hard roads. The show of 

 oxen in thriving condition at the Michaelmas fair in Hereford, 

 cannot be exceeded by any similar annual collection in Eng- 

 land ; on this occasion they are generally sold to the principa 

 graziers in the counties near the ineUopolis, and there pr- 

 fected for the London markets. 



Herefordshire not lieing a dairying county, breeders direct 

 their attention to producing that form of animal best adapted 

 for feeding rather than milking. 'TThe whole attention of 

 the Leicestershire bree<ler has been directed to the improve- 

 ment of his cow ; and for the use of the grazier, he has made 

 her an excellent animal. The Herefordshire breeder, on the 

 contrary, has sacrificed the qualities of the cow to those of the 

 ox ; heaoes not value his cow according to the price which the 

 grazier would give for it, but in projiortion as it possesses that 

 form and character which experience has taugnt liim to be 

 conducive to the excellence of the future ox. Hence the cow 

 of Herefordshire is comparatively small, extremely dehcatc, 

 and very tieminine in Its characters. It is light-fleshcd when 

 in common condition, but capable of pttnding itKU uniwr- 



